Research project: D-fRUTI - D-mannose for recurrent UTI

Currently Active:

Yes

Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections (RUTIs), where patients experience more than three UTI episodes in a year, or two in 6 months, are common among women, affecting up to 800000 women in the UK annually. RUTIs have a major impact on a woman’s quality of life and are usually treated with frequent courses of antibiotics. Taking either daily preventative antibiotics or frequent courses of antibiotics for UTI can cause side effects and increase the likelihood of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistant UTIs are harder to treat and cause longer and more severe symptoms. It would be useful to find alternative approaches to recurrent UTI to relieve the symptoms and to help reduce dependence on antibiotics.

Project Overview

Who is the trial for?The trial is for women aged 18 years or over who have had seen their doctor with symptoms of urine infection 3 or more times in the last 12 months or two or more times in the last 6 months.

More about the trial medicineD-Mannose is a form of sugar that may prevent UTIs by stopping the bacteria from binding to the bladder lining. A recent study in Croatia study suggested D-mannose taken daily worked better than either daily antibiotics or no treatment to prevent further UTIs. A larger study including placebo medicines is needed to confirm these findings.

What is going to happen?Women will be identified using a GP notes search and those expressing an interest will attend the surgery to meet the study nurse and for a baseline assessment. Those consenting to take part will be asked to take the D-mannose or placebo for the next six months. We will collect detailed information on recovery using a standard diary. We need to recruit 508 women to the study to show a halving of the risk of recurrent infection during the six months treatment period.

We will also complete interviews with women taking part in the study to find out more about their experiences. We will also measure economic data to find if the intervention is cost effective.